Romance: Half Old, Half New
by Captain Jowitt
Summary: The USS Romance under refit when she is called into service to stop an invasion, the first officer is unprepared for the responsibility that will fall upon her...


**The Old Romance**

**The USS Romance sat in drydock undergoing the major refit that was the fate of almost every other Constitution class ship.**

**She was the same class as the renowned Enterprise, a name that had recently been drilled into every cadet to go through the gates of Starfleet Academy.**

**The USS Romance may not have had such a fruitful career as her sister, the Enterprise, but she was still an important vessel in Starfleet as she was extremely valuable for cementing relations with new alien worlds near the Federation border.  
>If these worlds were not hostile then she would be used to try and persuade these worlds to join the Federation, if they were willing.<strong>

**The Romance had been cementing for many years and had finally joined her fellow ships in drydock to be upgraded.  
>The USS Romance was slightly different from her siblings as she had been designed differently as an experiment to try and make her go faster, the grey tubes called nacelles were slightly bigger then the standard Constitution class ships making her a fair bit longer. There was also an extra pair of impulse engines placed near the edge of the saucer section along with the standard impulse engines in the middle as well as a few other differences that belonged to the Romance sub-class of which she was currently the only one.<br>These alterations were implemented as part of an experiment to try and get ships to go faster, this had only been partly successful and the result was that the Romance could go quite a bit faster but for much less of a time, as it used up energy much more quickly.**

**The refit had only just started and so the ship didn't look much different, except for a few missing panels here and there which had been pulled up by the little yellow work bees: small two person vessels designed for building or repairing large ships.  
>Among these vessels was a single shuttle...<br>**

**The lone pilot of this small ship was around 30, fairly tall. She had long dark red hair which hung down onto her shoulders and dark blue eyes which seemed to hold many secrets. Her face was somehow delicate yet strong. Many battles had scarred her, physically as well as mentally,**  
><strong>you could see these wounds in her eyes and she had a scar running down her neck which she had obtained from a battle with the Klingon Empire.<br>**

**She looked at the Romance and a smile flicked across her face**

**'I, Emma Maiden, am going to be first officer of this ship'**

**The craft in front of her was beautiful... and big; it was said that she would hold 500 crew by the time the refit was finished.**

**But there was still a question that was caught at the back of her mind,**

**'Am I Ready for this, sure I've worked hard enough, waited long enough, taken all the tests, but I'm not sure I can do this, the responsibility is terrifying'**

**But she still kept a cool face, if someone had been in the shuttle with her they wouldn't have noticed her worry and fear;**  
><strong>she seemed very calm and controlled and was perfectly capable of worrying about her career and piloting a star-ship at the same time.<strong>

**Unlike her fellow officers she had never been that ambitious, she was fine with taking the low jobs  
><strong>

**'first officer is high enough for me and even that I am hardly ready for '**

**'Will I be first officer forever more?'  
><strong>

**This thought scared her she did not want to do the same thing for the rest of her life, the pointlessness of it scared her.**

**'Is this all I will do?'**

**She reassured herself that she was doing the right thing for herself:**

**'I'll be meeting new species, introducing them to the Federation, that's fairly impressive,...**

**isn't it?'**

**There was another thing she was worried about, how many people would die under her command?**

**She had seen death too many times in her life, too many too****friends, **** many strangers. Somehow the strangers deaths were worse, people lost who she had never got to know, never bothered to talk to... now she never could. Too many people lost,**

**'In the line of duty'**

**She only realised she had said that out loud when the computer said in it's monotone female voice :**

**'Please restate request'**

**This shook her from her pondering and she murmured to the computer**

** 'Don't worry about it'.**

**She had now lost her train of thought, so she looked out of the window at the ship laid out in front of her.**

**The Romance was beautiful and Emma remembered why she had taken a shuttle in the first place, instead of taking the conventional transporter, she did it so she could see the ship, connect with it,  
>she felt it important to know what the ship was,<strong>

**no _who_ the ship was.**

**She was definitely alive and Emma had already fallen in love with her, more then any boyfriend or lover, the ship was more real to her then any of these people in her life.**

**Emma just wanted their relationship to be complete, she longed to touch the ship, to feel the ship in its glory.**

**'She is Beautiful'**

**Her small ship flew between two of the ribs attached to the drydock and flew slowly closer to the docking port on the neck of the ship.**

**She let a single tear of happiness run down the side of her cheek.**

**She bent down and unstrapped the heavy starfleet boots she had on, she wanted to touch the the ship she was about to board. She knew it was a bit crazy but this was one of those crazy moments.  
><strong>  
><strong>She tapped a few controls to turn the ship around and then put it into reverse.<br>**

**Then the computer told her: 'Coming in to dock, initiating auto-docking procedure.'**

**Emma answered back 'Computer hold, let me do it manually' This seemed more personal... somehow.**

**The computer rudely said 'This is not recommen-'**

**'Yes I know' and then she smiled 'I need the practice'**

**As she got nearer she remembered a poem her mother had told her when she was younger:**

_**' A ship strong and tall, flowing through space like water through a river,  
>holding on to the stars, using them to guide her,<br>thousands of stories and memories in the minds of her crew.  
>Stories of exploration,<br>stories of adventure,  
>of new life and friendships<br>A Romance Born In The Stars.**_

**The description in the poem seemed to fit the ship perfectly.  
>Emma guided the travel pod nearer it's destination and waited for the inevitable contact with her ship.<br>She piloted the travel pod almost instinctively as if it was a part of her. Her craft got nearer and nearer until she felt the graceful (**thanks to her piloting skills) **contact with the ship and the two vessels locked in place.**

**She got up slowly, picked up her boots and walked to the door at the back of the ship, closed her eyes then pressed the control panel next to the door, with her eyes still closed, she heard the door hiss open and lifted her bare foot forward and let it down on the warm deckplate of her ship,**

**'First Contact.'**

**She felt the soul of the ship, felt it's beauty, its mission of peace.**  
><strong>She placed her other foot on the deckplate and opened her eyes to see her old friend Jack Leeds standing there grinning,<br>he had obviously known she would do something like taking her boots off (one of her impulses) so he did not seem that surprised to see her barefooted.  
>She smiled<br>'Hello Jack'**  
><strong>he returned the grin,<br>'Hello _Ensign_ Maiden.'  
>'<em>First officer<em> Maiden to you.'  
>She kissed him on each cheek,<br>years ago she would have kissed him the lips,**

'but this is not years ago' she remembered

**'It's good to see you again Emma, I am looking forward to working with you.**'  
><strong><br>Jack was about ten years senior to her and she was happy to see he had a few gray hairs,**

'nice to see him under a little stress, good to see his work is challenging.'

**Even though his work had given him the odd grey hair, the majority was black-brownish.  
>Jack had missed Emma and it was good to finally see her again. He still had feelings for, they both knew that, but he had veiled it with jokes and teases at her.<br>His memories of their relationship were still in his head which he had been advised by his old vulcan friend Slovok, to supress.  
>This had not been at all successful, probably because he did not want to suppress them, he wanted to keep them alive instead.<strong>

**Her image had faded from his mind and he had forgotten how lovely she was, now seeing her again he realised:**

** 'She is beautiful'**

**Jack realised he had not said anything for what seemed ages, he needed something to break his silence, he looked down at her bare feet and sighed mockingly,**

**'I suppose you wanted to _meet_ the ship did you?'**

**She grinned**

**'Sounds about right, you know I need to have physical contact with a ship before I serve with her, it makes her all the more real!'  
>'You <em>are<em> crazy'**

**'_You_ have no passion for your ship' she countered, they laughed and then she asked with a grin:**

**'So are you going to give me a grand tour?'**

**They smiled and went down the grey corridor together, arm in arm, like good friends.**

What you think? By the way, I write in bold print, in my opinion it looks nicer then this small stuff. I am so sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes.  
>Do you think the poem is too cheesy? Please review!<p> 


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